Abstract

The propagation of ion-acoustic (IA) solitons is studied in a plasma system, comprised of warm ions and superthermal (Kappa distributed) electrons in the presence of an electron-beam by using a hydrodynamic model. In the linear analysis, it is seen that increasing the superthermality lowers the phase speed of the IA waves. On the other hand, in a fully nonlinear investigation, the Mach number range and characteristics of IA solitons are analyzed, parametrically and numerically. It is found that the accessible region for the existence of IA solitons reduces with increasing the superthermality. However, IA solitons with both negative and positive polarities can coexist in the system. Additionally, solitary waves with both subsonic and supersonic speeds are predicted in the plasma, depending on the value of ion-temperature and the superthermality of electrons in the system. It is examined that there are upper critical values for beam parameters (i.e., density and velocity) after which, IA solitary waves could not propagate in the plasma. Furthermore, a typical interaction between IA waves and the electron-beam in the plasma is confirmed.